The Magic of the Iron Pentacle is a book that, like Meredith & Parma’s previous co-authored work Elements of Magic, is inspired by a core class in Reclaiming tradition witchcraft. Unlike the prior book, this one is – at least as far as I can tell – authored entirely by Meredith & Parma. It reads as more cohesive and consistent as a result. As someone who hasn’t taken an Iron class, I found the material to be clear and thorough, definitely enough of an introduction for me to incorporate Iron into my practice. 

 The book is organized into eight parts: a brief introduction (including history, ‘how the book is set up’, etc.), a section for each of the five points of the Iron Pentacle, a section on ‘Iron Pentacle Tools’ (including both basics like grounding and centering that are relevant far beyond Iron as well as ways to run the Iron Pentacle), and finally the last part ‘Deeper Iron’ which gets into additional pentacles (rusted, gilded, and Pearl) as well as some ideas for experimenting with running iron in different ways, including in small groups. Overall, I think this structure works, though I do think that some readers will want to read the ‘Iron Pentacle Tools’ section first, particularly those less familiar with ritual structure and those who aren’t familiar with how Iron / pentacle work is run specifically. 

 Inevitably, there will be parts that work for some readers and not others. Each of the sections on a point of the pentacle includes several ritual ideas, and there are some that appeal to me that I can imagine trying and others I definitely wouldn’t, and I’m sure this will be true (with different rituals) for different readers. 

I appreciate that the authors have included a ‘further reading’ list, though I’d much prefer it didn’t include a so-called ‘feminist’ author known to be vehemently transphobic: this feels out of alignment with the rest of the book, which reads as quite inclusive. I also appreciate that they consistently identify where (ex. from Feri, from Reclaiming) different ideas and practices derive from.